Drew McManus is one of the premier orchestral consultants in the country and the man behind many projects including Adaptistration and Arts Hacker. He started and sold his first arts-related business when he was in his mid-20's and has since moved on to form many successful organizations.

This was a truly delightful conversation. I love the way Drew thinks about the world and the arts. He is an incredibly thoughtful person and that particularly showed through in a few of his answers in this interview. He answered a handful of questions in a way that wasn't exactly what I was expecting and each time made me think deeper about the subject I had just asked him about. I can't chat with people enough who challenge my thinking along those lines.

It's no wonder he has launched so many successful businesses within the arts world!

Topics Covered:

The specific moment he learned the first great lie of academia

How he built his first arts-related business in his mid-20's that ended up being so successful that he sold it and it is still in operation today

What drove him to form a 501(c)3 at such an early age

The factors that led him to become an orchestral consultant (including a lack of people in the field at the time)

The importance of a musician having the skills necessary to be able to look at the fiscal health of an organization before auditioning or accepting a position

How he networked (and increased his consulting business exponentially) through content marketing years before that's what it was called

How his Adaptistration blog not only solved problems for people but also created a community

How Arts Hacker was born through identifying a need in the arts world that Drew and his team could meet better than anyone else

The importance of creating a workspace environment you can thrive in and of investing in yourself

If you do you should be using Google Analytics to analyze everything about the people visiting your website. What are the search terms that are leading people to you? How long are people staying before they leave? Are they using mobile devices or desktop computers?

The list goes on and on and all of this information can help you to best craft your message and then to get it in front of the right eyeballs. This type of analysis is not an option if you are taking your business seriously.

Don't know where to start? There's good news!

Arts Hacker, a website by Drew McManus, has a whole slew of tips on how to use Google Analytics. The posts at Arts Hacker are very well laid out and present actionable advice for anyone regardless of technical ability.

I just used this article to filter out my own visits to andrewhitz.com in order to get better data across the board. This is something I should have done long ago but until I saw that very short and to the point article leading me step-by-step through the process I never got around to it.